12/30/2015

The more "Selfies" I take, the more I appreciate the younger generation and their ability to see themselves in a positive way.

It makes me literally laugh to see my face and try to take a picture that appears happy, friendly or at the very least not blank.

Seeing myself through the lens has me appreciate myself and become comfortable seeing me in pictures.

I am from the older generation who believes that self-love is harmful.

That it is self-centered and narcissistic.

I had to look up the word Narcissistic to see if they are right.

"having an excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one's physical appearance:"

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism."

My experience of taking selfies is that it takes a certain amount of self-love and appreciation, to post pictures of your face.

There has to be a healthy balance between being self-loving and okay posting pictures of yourself, and being excessively interested in oneself and physical appearance.

Mostly, from my generation, there is an unhealthy and unloving attitude against themselves and the hatred or dislike for self photographs.

Perhaps there are some who are narcissistic, but I believe that Facebook and Instagram have introduced ourselves to ourselves. To find comfort in our bodies...and acceptance.

And, even less comparison to others.

The more I am comfortable in my skin...the more daring I become in doing things that previously I would have found embarrassing or too attention getting. Due to my lack of self-love....I didn't want to be seen.

So, my take away on Selfies, is that it enhances the relationship with self...to be okay with how you look in your many different faces.

I believe that the more comfortable we are with ourselves, the more at peace we are and the more empowered we become at being ourselves.

Me trying to depict "Holy Whah, I did an hour of snowshoeing!"

I am less self-conscious; the more conscious I become, as I see me in Selfies!

12/29/2015

Often I hear the sentiment - "I am so happy this year is about over....and I certainly hope next year is better."

It is like they believe the calendar is the problem. That a lineup of 365 days are going to deliver to you a better year. That you can just sit back and wait for 'good things' to come.

I am not sure if this same group of people make resolutions or set goals and ponder new accomplishments. It just feels like they are absent from the equation of whether it will be a better year than the one they are completing.

In my life, for the past many years, the end of a year and the beginning of the next don't hold expectations from me.

Mostly, my life almost feels absent of years.

The days and passing of years are not what make my life.

My life is made up of moments and new experiences, lessons learned and even the exiting of friends/family...and my personal growth in so many areas.

The overall picture or tapestry isn't in lines of years.

It is more in fun moments or huge accomplishments.

As this year ends in a few days...I can look back over my shoulder and see the highlights and feel moments of great joy, fun, new experiences, new friends and deeper relationships and relationships that ended. All of them have added character to me.

Time put into a string of 365 days is a way to keep track of time. It isn't there to deliver you happiness.

It isn't going to bring us anything; we don't first put the effort into.

We are the ones who will be dancing upon each day.

What will you be doing?

Who will you be doing it with?

What plans are you making?

Are there new things you want to try?

Is there old things you want to do more of?

It isn't whether we will have a New year; but rather a NEW you?

Will you repeat old choices and expect a different outcome?

Or are you willing to let go of your old ways to find a new you at the end of this new year?

I love that a few things made my highlights list...are new for me.

Wearing a Tutu

Getting a tattoo

Walking 14 miles in one stretch

Being a new Grandma (and I didn't have to do anything for that one)

Giving a talk at Michigan Tech

Entered a piece of Art for local showcase and got chosen

Entered into a juried Art show and got in

Painted in a class with Art and Mead

Jumped in the water with wedding clothes on

Reached out to an old friend after 30 plus years

Went silent in a relationship...upon request.

To name a few...

Who I am today; a year later with all these new experiences, is a more colorful me. Yet me.

Me with 365 more days gone by...in which some days held really fun moments.

So, my view of the upcoming year is to dare for more experiences I haven't done before AND more of what I love...and do already.

And to be open to all truths in all my relationships. Dare to be me; always.

Don't expect the year to change you...it can't.

The days pass by from morning to night...it is up to you what you do with your time.

What you say yes to.

How you move and what you do.

I hope when you look back at your string of 365 days you too see some really awesome highlights!

I will be on the lookout for new things, I will dare to try.I'm excited to see what fun I have next year...what moments will be strung together behind me. With a few days to go....will one of them make my highlight list?

12/25/2015

As I sit and sip tea on this Christmas morning...before the day begins, I was pondering how peaceful my life is.

Peace didn't come to me.

It wasn't a place I arrived at.

Someone isn't carrying my peace.

Peace is like happiness...and found inside of you.

Peace is place where you are at one with who you are, and reality.

Peace is to not fight against what is; but to be fully accepting.

I guess you could call it Grace.

On Christmas morning...I am not sitting 'hoping' for a Bright Christmas. I am filled with bright peace...warm love and joy.

In the past, Christmas was supposed to make me happy, fulfill my dreams and hopes and right the world more or less. It was a day of magic that would correct all the wrongs the year held. The pressure Christmases of past held...and my hole of anticipation waiting to be filled...were huge; and largely a failure. For no Christmas could do what I myself had to do.

Peace does begin with you....or end with you.

Each of us is responsible for the energy we bring to Christmas Day...and all the other days of the year.

12/19/2015

I am 57 years old today...closer to the end of my life, than the beginning. One of my greatest, or most significant achievements, has been to look unblinkingly at my life.

My past.

My present.

My relationships.

My wounds...and their origins.

To feel and acknowledge so many truths that were hidden to spare me pain as a child.

I am earnest in not blinking away from things that hurt me. For I now know it hurts more to deny that which IS.

And, denying it, or not seeing it, doesn't make it NOT so.

I think my mother believes that if I would only forgive (deny) the wounds of my past; I could then have a joyful life. When the opposite is true.

I didn't find joy until I found the source of my pain.

I wasn't free while I denied the truth.

I didn't know love; until I loved my broken self.

It is funny in a peculiar way, how those who believe joy is found NOT looking at things that hurt. That if you just 'forgive forget and move on' you will be much happier. They are usually the ones who have never tried doing anything but, 'moving on'....never once stopped and dipped into the truth of what is.

There is no comparison to the me prior to allowing the truth to be part of me....and the one in denial. The aliveness, and the magic of life, the freedom of choice, and my voice, and the fearless changes I have made are like a beautiful flowering tree...compared to the dark dead seeds of denial.

I am so grateful that I was given this journey to experience...the depths of the darkness and the highest levels of joy, love, peace, contentment and just being Me.

I am not sure wisdom comes with age.

I believe wisdom comes with seeking to live truthfully; always.

And, with the truth, comes courage to be fully yourself.

Unique

Powerful

Free

The most valuable part of me is the part that dares to always accept, honor and respect the reality of what is. I am in awe of its ability to look unblinking at the rawness of life's darkness and its brilliant Light.

I am not afraid of my darkness; nor am I shy with feeling my Light.

The capacity of the human spirit leaves me in awe.

Just when I thought I was broken beyond repair....I caught a glimpse of innocence.

It was my innocence that carried me forward.

"Forgive them, they know not what they do..." is correct.

When I knew me better...I did better.

I continue to learn and grow and expand and find new adventures. I don't know who I will be when I grow up; but I am thoroughly enjoying this ride.

The darkest roads led me to the most beautiful places....all the parts of me I had denied.

Happy Birthday to me....and I will celebrate each new day...and joyfully honor each new part of being Me!

12/12/2015

"Choosing to be happy, like choosing to be healthy, means committing to actions that create those states. The good news is that the actions required for happiness are surprisingly simple. Just as weight-loss advice basically boils down to "eat less, move more," happiness requires just two steps. They'll sound counterintuitive, but people who really seem to have made themselves permanently happy - your Buddhas, your Jesuses, your Yodas - all recommend some version of the following prescription: Allow your pain to exist. Dissolve your pain."

"At first, this sounds patently ridiculous. Feel pain? Isn't that the definition for unhappiness? Only if you define unhappiness as the absence of all stress. But that definition doesn't wash. Up to a point, discomfort, uncertainty, and struggle are deeply compelling; otherwise, why would we watch movies that makes us shriek with fear and weep with sorrow, or rise up in anger against injustice? The fact is, those feelings are part of life's richness and beauty."

"Of course, actually suffering is very different from drama that takes place on the silver screen. You can't just watch your own experience like a movie....or can you? Actually, this is exactly what enlightened people suggest, and a growing body of evidence is proving them right. Mindfulness and meditation -simply focusing on the present moment, observing one's feelings without judging or reacting to them in any way - have been show to increase neural density in parts of the brain related to well being and raise the happiness set point that determines how we typically feel."

"Clinical psychologist and author Steven Hayes, PhD, asks readers to imagine an emotional machine that has two dials, one labeled PAIN, the other WILLINGNESS, as in willingness to suffer. Any sensible person cranks both those dials down to zero. Unfortunately, the pain button doesn't seem to work: No matter how far we turn it down, we still hurt. So we read self-help books and munch antidepressants like Pac-Women. these things might help us deal with pain, but they won't get rid of it. This method just never works. Bizarrely, here's what does: turning the willingness-to-suffer dial up to maximum."

"Don't take Haye's word for it; try an exercise. Search your mind for a topic you prefer not to think about; your dog's failing health, an argument with your spouse, the highly personal photos you accidentally posted on Facebook. Notice how you push away your sadness, anger, embarrassment. Accept this resistance. Let it be as it is. Paradoxically, you may feel it lessen slightly."

"Now, take five minutes to let yourself feel your true emotions about the forbidden subject. Don't take any action - please. Just allow your emotions. Write them down: "I'm so angry (sad, nervous, embarrassed), and with now I am just going to let myself feel it." If you don't resist at all, the pain will come in awful but brief surges because just like happiness hormones, the chemicals that cause misery tend to be short lived. According to neuroanatomist Jill Bolte-Taylor, PhD, it takes only 90 seconds for a wave of emotion to pass through us. This is the same length as a typical contraction in the final stages of childbirth. Coincidence? I think not. If you can allow enough 90-second intervals of emotional agony, the pain will eventually stop, and you will find you've given birth to a wiser, more compassionate version of yourself."

"So why, if emotional pain can be fleeting do many people suffer for years, a lifetime? The answer: thoughts. Animals get upset when some negative stimulus - a predator, an indeterminate loud noise - is present, but when the bad thing leaves, they tend to relax. Humans, on the other hand, can be lying safe in bed but feel absolutely terrified, enraged, or devoted about things that are present only in their imaginations."

"Many wisdom traditions teach that painful thoughts are never ultimately true. According to Buddha, tormenting thoughts are rooted in illusion. Jesus taught that God, truth, and peace are all one thing; it follows that an unpeaceful thought can't be truth. Writer Byron Katie, a modern master of thought dissolving , was wrenchingly miserable until she began questioning all her painful thoughts with rigorous honesty. "The mind's natural condition is peace," she writes. "Then a thought enters, you believe it, and the peace seems to disappear... When you question the thought...the story falls away. Peace is who you are without your story."

"After questioning a few million painful thoughts, I haven't found one I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. My ego hates this. It wants it mopey ballads, war chants, heavy-metal tantrums. My ego argues that if it can fuss enough, the universe will finally relent and give it everything it desires. You own ego probably wants the same thing. Good luck with that."

"If you are so tired of hurting that you're willing to let go of your favorite painful beliefs, you can dissolve them with steely eyed insistence on factual evidence. Let's look at some common human thoughts, as represented - you guessed it - in a few popular songs. I've had all these thoughts myself, and then I've rigorously checked them agains concrete external reality. Here's a short version:"

Hypothesis: Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.

Observation: She's gone.There's the sun.

Hypothesis: I can't live if living is without you

Observation: And yet here I sit, eating a sandwich.

Hypothesis: Love stinks

Observation: That's just silly. Love is the best.

"I could go on and on (and on and on), but you get my drift. Now it's your turn. Whatever devastating top ten hit your mind's constantly playing -- "I'm Not Enough," "No One Wants Me," "I'll Always Hurt Like This" - put your ego aside and test it with the pitiless honesty of a scientist. Any evidence at all that you are enough, or that anyone wants you in any way, or that there may be any pauses in your pain, disprove the hypotheses. And hear this, loud and clear: "If you can't know a thought is true for an absolute certainty, it doesn't pass the test. Reasonable doubt means the thought doesn't get to rule your life."

"Eventually, most painful thoughts dissolve in the light of this uncompromising truth. What's left is not some happy-face ditty, but a vast, sweet, silent openness. Many emotions flow through the openness, some are happy some are not. but the openness itself is who you are-- and it's unfathomably indescribably blissful. Dissolving pain is scary and hard, but will get easier with time. The openness is a discipline - and it may take your whole life to perfect."

"Some songs tell this truth, and singing them to myself has gotten me through a few truly awful experiences. Try this one in your own tough times:

12/11/2015

In O Magazine, an article about The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard...

"Get Out of Your Own Way"

"Most oppression comes not from others but from a source we least suspect: ourselves. Self-oppression is evident whenever we limit ourselves. We stay home instead of going out because we are too anxious to explore. We procrastinate on an important assignment or exciting new adventure because we cannot overcome our uncertainty. We lie to ourselves, break our own resolutions, allow our dreams to slide away without grasping them. Is it not clear to us that we can be our own worst enemies? But we can also be our own saviors. Through the active expression of our genuine natures, and the steady efforts to master our minds and move our lives forward, we can experience the freedom and joy that we deserve in this life. Thus personal freedom is more than just being free from pain - it is about being free to live, to truly enjoy and expand in life. It is not merely freedom from bad things that limit us, but freedom to experience good things that awaken us."

"Let Go of Fear"

"Most of the fear we feel in life is simply anxiety arising from our anticipation of two kinds of pain that change might bring: the pain associated with loss or hardship. The first type is a thought pattern in which we worry that we will loss something we cherish if we take any given action. We think, If I go on a new diet, I'm afraid I'll lose the joy I feel in eating my favorite foods. If I quit smoking, I'll lose that 20 minutes of peace I get by going outside. Once we sense that we are anticipating loss, we must question whether or not it is true. The more we look for evidence of our fears, the more we realize they are often faulty, quick assumptions of tired or undirected mind. The people who examine their fears of dieting, quitting a bad-habit, or leaving a bad relationship come to realize there is always less to lose than to gain in making a healthy decisions for themselves. Focus on the positive, for it is much more useful than the long nightmares of negativity."

"Find Joy in the Struggle"

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it: The vast majority hate the struggle required to advance.They complain with great angst that the road to independence and abundance is too hard, too inconvenient, too slow. If there is no straight and speedy line to success, the journey never begins. People don't go back to school because it will take too long. They don't exercise because the results come too slowly.They don't fight for their dreams because it would require long nights stacked on top of already busy days. The outcome is a stunningly large segment of society that is overweight, uninformed, unskilled, unhappy. None of us will rise tomorrow and say, "I do not wish to advance my life." But our actions are not what are measured at the end of tomorrow - only our actions speak to who we are and what we really desire. So let us rise tomorrow with minds set for advancement. Let us be bold again. In the face of any concern, we can remember that fortune favors, the brave, and that action alone will illuminate the next step."

I love that this month's issue is about change and wellness and actions.

My left hip is showing signs of "aging" and to counter act that process or to slow it down...I have to up my game of moving.

A group of women from WIND have set a goal for next fall to do a 100 mile through hike.

I joined.

Yep, with a bad hip and a body that needs lots of muscle building...I am going to work to advance my physical health.

I will have to find joy in the struggle to build strength and to breathe through the training.

The body I have right now could not do this. It will take actions to create the body that can.

Whether I make the complete hike or not; I will be rebuilding this body.

I have to let go of the fear or perceived loss of 'not being in pain' while I work out...cause I am in pain when I am not working out.

I have more fear about not being able to move, to have fun and to be part of the WILD WIND group of young girls moving, exploring and trying new things.

I have been in Physical Therapy....and have been given exercises to build muscle around my hip. I can see how it is working.

He believes that a 100 mile hike is doable...with training and adding muscle.

I see it, I can either be in pain from the lack of muscle or being in pain building it.